The Telangana government will be procuring 1200 Automatic External Defibrillator (AED) devices at a cost of ₹18 crore, they will be set up in all Primary Health Centres, UPHCs and Basthi Dawakhanas within a month, said Health Minister T Harish Rao while speaking at the CPR training programme at GVK Emergency Management and Research Institute on Wednesday.
The Minister said that the government was also planning to give permissions to apartments, gated communities, malls and bus stops for use of AED devices. When a person suffers a cardiac arrest, at that time one has to perform Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) where chest compression is given to the collapsed person. Many times, even after performing CPR, the heart does not respond. In such situations, an electric shock can be delivered to the heart using an AED. Currently, only one person out of 10 suffering from cardiac arrest has a chance of survival. With the use of CPR along with AED, the number can reach 5 survivals out of 10, he added.
The government will be providing CPR training to those who have a daily routine of contact with a lot of people, this includes representatives from municipal departments, police officials and gram panchayat officials.
Minister for Municipal Administration and Urban Development KT Rama Rao, who was also present at the programme, said that the State’s health sector had improved drastically in the last few years. He said that “In western countries, it is a norm for people to have a master health checkup once a year but that pattern is not followed in India and we overlook our health until something major happens. I request the health department to procure AEDs and make them available across the State so that even during cardiac arrest, lives can be saved.”
The Ministers were also given a live demonstration of administering CPR and usage of an AED device using a mannequin. Later, the Ministers and officials present at the programme also inaugurated a “CPR and AED Training Handout’. The booklet explains the definition of a cardiac arrest and the steps to be followed while performing CPR and using an AED device.
Published - March 01, 2023 07:40 pm IST
